Investigation Room, North Manhattan Homicide
March 7, 5.05 p.m.
Harper returned from interviewing Lucy Steller and Capske’s family. He called Blue Team together for a briefing and pulled up a chair.
‘We’ve spoken to Lucy Steller. She’s twenty-nine, works in a 7–Eleven store and writes novels. She’s badly shaken up, but her story seems simple enough. She left the club with David, walked home but when they got to her building, David Capske received a phone call. He told Lucy that he had to go to help a friend. He wouldn’t tell her why. He said he’d be an hour. The only other thing she said is that they saw a car outside the club. A red car. Someone inside was smoking. We’re checking CCTV on that. Eddie’s pieced together a tape of Capske’s last walk.’
Eddie Kasper dimmed the lights and clicked on the laptop in front of him. ‘We got every piece of CCTV tape between Lucy Steller’s apartment and the crime scene. I’ve got Capske in seven different shots.’ The team watched the grainy images of Capske walking up various streets.
‘Here,’ said Eddie, pointing. ‘He took out a thousand dollars from this ATM. It was found in his wallet. Later, he received a second phone call. We’ve got to guess that the first phone call told him how much money was needed, the second was for directions. So this might suggest that he was lured up there due to drugs or some kind of deal or blackmail. We got nothing else, but we’re going over this tape frame by frame.’
‘We got a trace on these calls?’ asked Garcia.
‘Damn right,’ said Harper. ‘Greco, what did you find?’
‘We’ve got one cell-phone number used in the two calls to Capske and the 911 call this morning. Untraceable account and the phone is not transmitting. The killer bought a cell, used it, dumped it.’
‘So the person who called Capske also called the cops,’ said Harper. ‘Why did he do that? We need answers. What else? Ricky? We got any new witnesses with anything to say yet? I can’t believe no one heard anything.’
‘We’ve done four hours of door-to-door. We leafleted the whole area. We got a woman in Jensen House who heard a single gunshot at around 3.30 a.m. Two more witnesses give the same time.’
‘That’s good, we’ve got a TOD right there. Eddie, what’s your best estimate on when he arrived at the alleyway?’
‘Last frame is clocked at 1.38 a.m. It’s five minutes from Jensen House. Let’s say he arrived at 1.43 a.m.’
Harper stood up. ‘We’ve got a guy leaves his fiancée after an unexpected phone call. It’s something he doesn’t want his fiancée to know about, so we presume it’s trouble. He takes out a thousand dollars, walks to East 112th and arrives at 1.43 a.m. Between that time and 3.30 a.m. he is wrapped in barbed wire. That’s an hour and forty-seven minutes the killer spent with his victim. Does that sound like a hit to anyone?’ No one spoke up. ‘Another detail we got is the weather report. Rain started at 2.41 a.m. The ground under the victim was dry. He was lying in barbed wire in that spot for fifty minutes before he was shot. Why?’
‘Maybe the killer was talking to the vic,’ said Mary Greco.
‘Well, that’s one possibility. One thing we can assume is that this killer is confident. More than that, he’s fearless. Two hours with the vic in a public alley – that’s no gangbanger or deranged killer. That’s an organized and planned mind. Garcia, you getting anything on these right-wing groups who have been targeting the Judge?’
‘Ratten found these right-wing assholes getting heated on the forums,’ said Garcia. ‘A lot of celebratory shit about the murder. They read it as a direct political attack.’
‘Well, that’s going to be front-page news by tomorrow.’
‘Yeah, they’re calling the killer a hero.’
‘Fucking hard to believe these bastards,’ said Ratten.
‘Isn’t freedom of speech just great?’ mocked Harper. ‘Can we trace them?’
‘Maybe, maybe not,’ said Ratten. ‘It’s a matter of priority. Could take two men four days to track this thread down and then you’re going to find that most of them are just a bunch of inadequate losers, sitting in their bedrooms, kicking back Oreos, living with their parents and collecting welfare. Also,’ Ratten continued, ‘I did take a quick look and the key information is encrypted.’
Ratten moved across to a PC and tapped the keyboard. ‘The forum is called the White Wall, but there’s no overarching organization that claims to run it. Not that I can find yet. But a few of them claim to be part of something called the White Wolves.’
‘Find out what it means,’ said Harper. ‘Give the lead to the Feds and get them to trace it. It might lead somewhere.’
‘Sure,’ said Ratten.
Harper pulled out a set of photographs from the alley. ‘I got Forensics to give me something on the single or multiple killer angle. At the moment, they can only find traces of one set of boot prints in the wet. They aren’t clean prints, but because kicking the wire has cut up the soles, they can ID each print and they’re pretty sure that there was only one guy in that alley. Our killer’s not just organized and fearless, he’s strong and determined.’
Harper took a marker pen, wrote the name David Capske at the top of a clean white board and pinned up a big glossy photograph of the twenty-seven year old who seemed to have got caught up in a world where he didn’t belong.
‘Capske was also a user,’ said Greco. ‘Apparently, he gave it up after meeting Lucy Steller, but he might have been looking to score again. His friends still use the same dealer. We met him, but he tells us Capske’s not using him.’
Harper turned to the team. ‘Keep at it. Something will break. This whole picture doesn’t add up. Someone lured him to that alleyway. Maybe the drugs were a lure, maybe it was blackmail. He took out the thousand dollars for something. Keep looking.’ The team started to move. ‘Oh, one more thing,’ he added. ‘Victim Support working with Lucy Steller told us that a reporter had already offered her money for the story.’
‘A reporter? Seriously? You get a name?’
‘No. But if it’s not Erin Nash, I’d be surprised. Be aware, that’s all.’
‘She doesn’t give up, does she?’ said Eddie.
‘No, she doesn’t, so get moving. I need to know more about this killer. We’ve got the FBI profiler already working on a profile. All we know so far is that he’s powerful, he’s angry and he doesn’t lose control for a moment. That’s a pretty scary combination.’